


The Ties That Bind

by DevilForging



Category: The Walking Dead (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, rape threat, unwanted touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-14
Updated: 2014-10-14
Packaged: 2018-02-21 05:18:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2456201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DevilForging/pseuds/DevilForging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A costly mistake made while attempting to rescue his group from Carver's tyrannical leadership leads to Luke being captured and beaten by Carver. This is a take on what could have happened off-screen while Clementine can't find Luke at Victor's comics. COMPLETE.</p><p>cw: ref to unwanted touching, rape threat, overall violence</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ties That Bind

**Author's Note:**

> I was speaking with a friend and we were wondering how fans’ reception of Luke might have been affected for if Carver beating him to shit had been shown on-screen like Kenny’s beat-down had. So, thanks to all the encouragement, I decided to write a take on what happened more from Luke’s POV and it actually ended up becoming darker than intended. The goal of this was to try and create a deep and unsettling sense of tension but also aim to be minimalistic with the actual description. Because Lord knows I can ramble. Just look at this note!

The business end of a rifle jabs between his shoulderblades and ushers Luke’s stumblingly into the pen, his hands raised in a universal appeal for mercy he knows he won’t be finding. And as he turns to look into the stunned, haggard faces of his group, seeing the hope drain from their eyes, he realizes just how little his first mouthful of food in days was really worth. He had already lost most of the crackers he had managed to wolf down when Troy had found him and worked him over with a pair of steel-toed workboots. All Luke tastes now is bile and rust.

A bubble of futile anger swells in his chest. Anger at himself, at his carelessness.

Clementine isn’t among them.

Carver slants him a look, lips twisting into a cockeyed smile. “Well well,” He greets him in that uncomfortably avuncular way - a touch of amusement in his gravelly voice - and holds out his hand for the walkie-talkie Troy passes over to him. He hefts it thoughtfully. “Welcome back, Luke. Heard you were poking around the storage room, helping yourself while your friends were hard at work. Now that isn’t very nice of you.” 

Luke’s jaw tightens and a muscle flexes in his cheek. It's more than enough of an answer and Carver’s smile falls, brows drawing low over his eyes. He never did like that look.

“Search him,” He rasps and Troy’s the first to move, gripping Luke firmly by the back of the neck and forcing him face-first into the wall. Then Carver directs a nod at Tavia and she steps forward, leaving Bonnie and another to keep guns trained on the others.

Luke stares ahead, dead-eyed, as Tavia's hands shove up under his sweater and then roughly pat his legs up and down, stripping him in the process of his machete and handgun and emptying his pockets of a crinkly food wrapper.

“That’s all he’s got,” She says, frowning when Troy scoffs.

“Think you missed somethin’.” Luke’s pulse spikes in his throat when Troy's hand reaches around his hip and tugs at his belt buckle, trying to wrench it loose. He snatches at Troy’s wrist in a knee-jerk reflex and suddenly his head’s being slammed into the wall, his face mashed so hard against it he’s fighting to breathe.

“Hands up on the fuckin’ wall where I can see ‘em,” Troy snarls through his teeth loudly enough for all to hear, “or I swear I’m puttin’ a goddamn bullet in every last one of these fuckers’ skulls.”

Luke doesn’t know how much weight the threat has, much less with Carver here and watching. Judging. But it’s hard to know what to make of anything when the room’s spinning on its own axis and his chest feels like its folding in on itself. His breath shivers low in his throat as he wills himself to keep still with everything he has while his body wants to shake helplessly, while he strugglingly wrestles every hard-wired, animal instinct to twist around and fight back. He feels the weight of everyone’s gaze on him, burning, as he carefully raises his hands and flattens them against the wall. Surrenders. 

Sarah buries her face into Carlos’ side. He holds her closer and looks away.

"Troy, _please_ ,” Bonnie pleads, her voice thin and unsteady. She looks helplessly to Carver who seems unimpressed by the spectacle.

But Troy isn’t having any of it. The impatient edge in his voice leaves no room for negotiation. " _C’mon_ , Tavia.”

Luke feels the button of his jeans come undone between Troy's fingers and the air in the room thins out, his chest heaving harder and faster, sweat pouring down his sides. There’s a silence and a thickness in the air like a storm’s brewing and Nick can’t take it anymore, his nostrils flaring as he charges forward and is shoved hard in the chest by another of Carver’s lackeys who then swings his rifle on him.

“Get back!” The man snaps and Nick levels him a challenging glare, teeth bared, his fists clenching and unclenching uselessly until a shot fired at his feet forces him to backpedal.

Someone screams and Carver yells something and Luke flinches, twisting his head painfully to the side to look, to shout. “No!” he gasps out just before the hand grabbing his neck clamps down and drives his head into the wall a second time. White-hot pain splits into his skull and his vision swims, a hot, thick trickle of blood oozing out one nostril. He tastes rust when he swallows.

“Hey! Don’t you FUCKIN’ move, you hear me?” Hot flecks of spit spray his ear and he’s being shaken emphatically. “Someone oughta bend your sorry ass over one of them crates. Maybe that’ll teach you fuckers a little respect.”

He stiffly jerks down Luke's fly and Luke closes his eyes, jaw jammed shut. Just breathing and breathing and breathing while his heart tries to punch its way out of his ribs.

“I knew you were psycho,” He hears Tavia say behind him. “But now I know just how much of a sick son of a bitch you really are.”

“You’d better watch that mouth, girl, if you know what’s good for you.”

Tavia glances tensely from Troy to Carver, searching his grizzled face long for some flicker of disgust for this, some flicker of humanity she thought she had seen once. But Carver just seems to look right through her. 

“Troy,” Carver barks and Troy’s head snaps up, his lips curling. But a stern glance schools his expression back into something fearful at first, and then neutral.

“Get the girl.”

Troy’s jaw juts but he doesn’t need to be told twice. He pulls his hand away and takes up his gun, throwing a baleful look at the others before showing himself out. The muzzle of Tavia’s AK jabs into Luke’s back, prodding him to move, but her gaze is clouded and unsure.

Carver doesn't waste any more time. He has his own business to attend to, his own methods of humiliation.

“Turn around,” He orders and Luke steps away from the wall very carefully, pale-faced, his hands in the air. His lips are pinched, eyes black with hate.

Carver nods again and there’s an explosion of pain as the butt of the rifle smashes into the back of his head and has him crumpling to his knees, colours bursting brightly in his vision. He’s gasping raggedly, struggling to orient himself when Carver’s boot connects with a sick, meaty thud and sends him sprawling him to the floor. There’s no time to think, to counter. Pain comes hard and fast from all angles and it’s all he can do try to brace himself and twist away as his nerves scream and his throat hitches up bile. He lets out a gasp, desperately choking air into his lungs before the next kick knocks it out of him. Blood and sweat spray the floor.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Luke, I really don’t. You’re a smart guy when you want to be. We could have gotten along just fine.” Carver huffs, pausing to look down at him like something stuck to the bottom of his boot. Grimly admiring his own handiwork. “But you’ve gone and bit the hand that fed you and you’ve left me no choice.”

His drives his foot down into Luke’s ribs, twisting his heel as he does, and he hears a sick crack, they both do. Luke goes blind, a strangled scream punching its way out of his lungs before he has any hope of biting it back. He clutches at his side the moment Carver steps off, wheezing, foamy blood frothing through clenched teeth.

“Look at you. You're a fucking wreck. I hope it was worth it.” Carver spits on him before he looks up with air of bitter triumph and takes in the looks of horror on the faces of the cabin survivors, reveling in it. Then he’s waving Carlos over. Carlos just stares back like he can’t for the life of him remember how to move.

“Get over here and have a look at him, would you? I want to make sure he's with us for the rest.”


End file.
